This application is a continuation of U.S. patent application Ser. No. 12/430,616, entitled “CONVERSION OF C—O—H COMPOUNDS INTO HYDROGEN FOR POWER OR HEAT GENERATION filed Apr. 27, 2009, now U.S. Pat. No. 8,303,676, which is a continuation-in-part of U.S. patent application Ser. No. 12/033,740, entitled “CONVERSION OF CELLULOSE INTO HYDROGEN FOR POWER GENERATION,” filed Feb. 19, 2008, now abandoned, by Samuel C. Weaver et al., the entire disclosure of which is incorporated herein by reference for all purposes.
This application relates generally to power generation. More specifically, this application relates to power generation through the use of C—O—H compounds for generation of hydrogen.
Extensive work has been done on conversion of cellulose, which is one example of a C—O—H compound, into ethanol (molecular formula: C2H5OH). Ethanol is known as drinking alcohol found in beverages. Ethanol is a flammable solvent and miscible with water and many organic solvents. The largest use of ethanol is as a motor fuel and fuel additive. In the United States, ethanol is most commonly blended with gasoline as a 10% ethanol blend. This blend is widely sold throughout the U.S. Midwest, and in cities required by the 1990 Clean Air Act to oxygenate their gasoline during wintertime. The energy returned on energy invested for ethanol made from corn in the U.S. is 1.34. This means that it yields 34% more energy than it takes to produce it.
There have been several methods of hydrogen extraction from cellulose (C6H10O5). One of the methods is focused on using microbal bugs along with sodium hydroxide (NaOH) and a catalyst to cause a reaction that releases the hydrogen in cellulose and captures the carbon in cellulose as sodium carbonate (Na2CO3). There is still a remaining need for developing a simpler and cost effective way of generating hydrogen gas from C—O—H compounds more generally, and in a fashion that allows efficient power generation from the reaction-product hydrogen gas.
While various power and heat generation techniques exist in the art, there is still a general need for the development of alternative techniques for generating power. This need is driven at least in part by the wide variety of applications that make use of power generation, some of which have significantly different operation considerations than others.